Payback (3 page)

HE WAS IN HER ENGLISH CLASS. HOW
convenient. She'd never noticed him before, but there he was. Front row, window seat. Good view and a fast escape route. And he was eating a Hostess cupcake. That was comforting. At least he had good taste in food.

Gaia made her way across the room, her battered sneakers squeaking loudly on the linoleum floor. He didn't see her, and she didn't exactly have an opening line, so she dropped her bag on his desk with a half flop, half clatter.

If he was startled, he hid it well. He chewed, swallowed, and looked up. His eyebrows arched when he saw her, but he recovered quickly and leaned back in his chair, smiling up at her. He had chocolate stuck to his two front teeth.

"If it isn't Gaia the Brave," he said, running his tongue quickly along his bottom teeth to clear the sugary goo. It didn't help the top part of his mouth, but Gaia wasn't about to point that out.

"Got another one?" she asked, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. It fell right back into place, and she didn't touch it. Pointless. As were all attempts at grooming in Gaia's book.

Sideburns Tim experienced momentary confusion marked by a quick squint. "Another what?"

"Cupcake," Gaia said, shifting her feet. That was when she noticed that Heather Gannis was sitting two rows behind Sideburns Tim, shooting Gaia a glare that was now so familiar to her, Gaia could probably have mimicked it in her sleep. She looked Heather directly in the eye and spoke to Tim. "If you give me a cup-cake, I'll come to your little party."

Heather visibly paled. Even her normally lined lips were white. It was all Gaia could do to keep from breaking the no-smiling-on-Mondays rule. It was an odd Monday when that almost happened twice.

Sideburns Tim pulled a single wrapped cupcake out of his bag and tossed it at Gaia. She caught it in one hand without even blinking.

"I don't know if it's your lucky day or mine," he said with a smirk that displayed a small dimple just behind a very light layer of stubble. Probably sexy in some circles. In Heather's circle, from the look of pure horror on the girl's face.

"It's yours," Gaia said. His smirk deepened. She pocketed her cupcake and walked to the back of the room, allowing herself a brief moment of pride. It had been a long time since she'd come out with a comeback line she liked on the spot and not approximately three and a half hours later, when it was useless.

The fury was coming off Heather in waves. As Gaia took her seat, she wondered if Heather had spoken to Sam this weekend -- if she knew what had happened between Gaia and her beloved boyfriend. If she did know, Gaia really wished the girl would clue her in. But somehow Gaia doubted that was going to happen.

In fact, since she hadn't received any idle death threats, Gaia figured Heather was thus far clueless. Maybe even more clueless than Gaia was. Gaia at least knew she'd been in Sam's room. Worn Sam's clothes. Even if there had been no touching of the lips, she was sure Heather would throw a Springer-worthy psycho tantrum if she knew what Gaia knew.

Leaning back in her chair, Gaia tore open the packaging on her cupcake and propped her knees up on the desk in front of her. Sure, Sam hadn't called. Yes, she'd just committed herself to an actual social function. And yes, she was living with a heinous woman who wore slutty clothes and bad perfume.

But the thought that she actually knew something about Sam that Heather didn't was the thing that brought the first ever full-on Monday smile to Gaia Moore's lips.

HEATHER GANNIS WAS HAVING
A very bad day, and trying to keep herself from screaming in the middle of English class wasn't making it any easier. Her boyfriend was avoiding her, her best friends had all gone out the night before without her and couldn't stop talking about it, and the only reason she hadn't gone was because she had fully expected said boyfriend to call her, which he, of course, hadn't.

What if he'd spent the weekend with Gaia? What if he'd left Heather's apartment and gone directly to wherever the reject holed herself up? After all this time and everything they'd been through, had Gaia finally won?

Heather traced the pink line down the side of her paper with her pen, pushing so hard, she tore a hole in the page. She was getting so sick of everything. Sick of Sam's avoidance-of-conflict policy. Sick of feeling unsure. Sick of friends who dropped money on cab rides and bars like they were a necessity. Sick, most of all, of Gaia Moore.

Mr. MacGregor sauntered into the room and immediately started passing out pop quiz papers. Lovely. What kind of person gave a quiz the day after Thanksgiving weekend? It was like the man lived to see students suffer. What next? Was her hair going to start falling out in clumps?

Heather adjusted the collar on her itchy wool sweater and pushed her thick brown mane back behind her shoulders. Whatever she did, she couldn't let her misery show. She needed to constantly keep the three Cs in high gear. Cool, calm, collected. Otherwise there would be questions from her legion of followers. And questions, at this point, were something she couldn't handle.

Missy Ryan handed the quiz papers back, and Heather took one and passed the stack along. Nothing on the page looked remotely familiar. Her body temperature skyrocketed. Heather turned the paper over with a slap and took a long breath. She had to chill. Now.

She hazarded a glance over her shoulder at Gaia. She, of course, was busily scratching away at her paper, oblivious to the world around her. The girl practically looked happy. That never happened. Something in the cosmic balance of Heather's universe had shifted, and she didn't like it.

Tim asking Gaia to tonight's party was the last straw. Heather faced forward again and twisted a lock of hair around her finger violently, yanking at her scalp. The only thing that had kept Heather going this weekend was looking forward to tonight's little shindig. She'd talked it up to all her friends, making sure they would all be there. There was nothing better than a free party with free dancing and free alcohol, even when her boyfriend was freakishly AWOL.

But a party with Gaia Moore was another story.

A party with Gaia Moore was something to avoid at all costs.

GAIA REALLY WANTED A DOG. AS she stood outside the fence that surrounded the dog run in Washington Square Park, watching the little pink tongues and the little padded feet and the little twitching noses, she wanted nothing else more.

Imagine having something in your life that lived for nothing but you. Imagine unconditional love. Imagine a friend that could hide no secrets. A friend that couldn't hurt you, who would protect you at all costs, and all you had to do was throw him some kibble every once in a while. A friend who, yeah, smelled bad but hung out by the door every day just to see your face.

Gaia grinned. She could have just described Ed Fargo.

She gripped the fence with her frozen hands and watched a scruffy little mutt with a black body and brown ears chase a squirrel out through a hole in the other side of the fence.

Of course if she did get a dog, she'd probably figure out how to drive it away. She seemed to be very skilled at that. But maybe, just maybe, she only repelled humans.

With a huge sigh Gaia leaned back her head and watched the steam of her breath dance up into the air. After ten minutes of doing the go-in-don't-go-in boogie in front of Sam's dorm, she felt good to be momentarily still in the presence of the frenzied mayhem in front of her. For once she felt like the one sane being in a twenty-yard radius. Funny how she had to be in the company of a bunch of ankle-biting, loudly yelping animals that sniffed each other's butts in order to feel normal.

"Sadie! Sadie! Over here!" someone called, causing a little collie to look up from its dirt inhaling.

"Crystal!"

"Katie!"

"Buffy!"

"Aaaahhh! Get it off me! Get it off me!"

"Katie! Katie, no! Bad dog!"

Gaia smirked as she found Katie at the far side of the run, outside the fence. She was a beautiful golden retriever who had latched onto some suit's shoelace and was pulling back, her four feet planted firmly on the ground.

"Katie!"

"Gaia!"

"Katie! Stop it now!"

"Gaia?"

"Gaia?"

A hand landed on her shoulder, and Gaia spun around so fast, her hair whipped into her eyes and temporarily blinded her. She brought her hands to her face and shoved the hair away.

"Hey," a familiar voice said. "This is some exciting after-school entertainment."

Mary. Gaia felt a little stirring in her stomach at the memory of her last encounter with Mary Moss. And everything that had come after it. The cocaine, followed up by the cold, the beating, the theft, the explosion, the blood, and then all the stuff she couldn t quite remember.

"I can see how it doesn't live up to
your
standards of excitement," Gaia replied. She wanted to take back the words a moment later when she saw the hurt flash through Mary's eyes, but she didn't. Gaia was bad at relationships and even worse at apologies. She turned back to the dogs and focused on a patch of ground in front of her.

Mary stepped up beside her, shoving her hands in the pockets of her long wool coat. "Guess I deserved that," she said tentatively, seeming to stare at the same spot of dirt as if it could reveal Gaia's thoughts. "Did you get my letter?"

"Yeah," Gaia said. The letter had explained how Mary had a serious problem. How she wanted to get clean. How she wanted to get clean for Gaia. And Gaia was happy for Mary. She really was. But the whole doing-it-for-Gaia was just a little too much pressure, even if it was accompanied by a lot of chocolate. "I got it," she said finally.

"And?" Mary asked. She reached out and laced her pink-gloved fingers through the fence. Her fingers looked very small and very thin. Gaia looked into Mary's questioning, vulnerable eyes.

"And . . . I think it's . . . good that you want to, you know, quit," Gaia said. Damn, she was articulate. But she didn't know what she was supposed to do or say. And it seemed like one of those situations that called for exactly the right thing. Gaia was pretty sure she'd never said exactly the right thing in her life.

Mary took a deep breath, shifting her feet so that the gravel and silt crunched beneath her boots. "Well, I'm looking into some stuff, like NA and . . . stuff," she said, stumbling over her own words. "My parents are helping. I, uh . . . I told them everything. I figure I can't do this without them, and besides completely freaking out and crying and the whole deal, they're actually being really cool. But I need your help with a very important step in the clean-Mary plan."

"What's that?" Gaia asked. She noticed for the first time that her friend's pale skin was paler than normal, her unruly red hair oddly flat. The girl needed that unconditional love Gaia was longing for moments ago. She needed it maybe more than Gaia did.

"The good, clean fun part," Mary said with a smile that held just a trace of the Mary-mischief Gaia had learned to love.

"Good, clean fun, huh?" Gaia said with a smirk. Little did poor Mary know that Gaia wasn't exactly an expert on the subject of fun. She wasn't even a novice. Up until she met Mary, she'd been pretty sure she was, in fact, immune to fun. Still, she couldn't exactly let Mary down. It was time to throw the girl some kibble.

"I think I can handle that," Gaia said, pulling her jacket closer to her body and shivering slightly as a breeze fought its way past her collar and down her back. She looked Mary directly in the eye. "I just have one question," she said, causing the smile to disappear from Mary's face. "How do I know you're telling the truth? That you really want to do this."

Mary gripped the fence harder, and her face became pale. For a moment Gaia thought her friend might faint, but she held her own. Seconds later, her features softened and a little color returned to her cheeks.

"Because," she said, her voice just slightly shaky. She cleared her throat and tossed back her hair. "Because I'm going to stay here with you and watch these stupid dogs." Mary's brow wrinkled slightly as she glanced around at the assembled owners with their steaming coffees and their leashes wrapped around their hands and wrists. "And you are going to explain to me what, exactly, is supposed to be interesting about this."

Okay, so maybe the girl was sincere. Gaia tilted her head toward the fence, inviting Mary to come closer. When their foreheads were practically touching the cold metal Gaia brought her tingling cheek close to Mary's in conspiratorial spy fashion.

"See that dog right there?" Gaia asked, pointing out Katie, who was now terrorizing Sadie the collie by barking at her and chasing her every time she sat down. Mary nodded and smiled. "Keep an eye on that one," Gaia said. "I think you'll like her."